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With increased accessibility to work from virtually anywhere at any time, along with flexible work-from-home policies, we all know the line has blurred between office hours and leisure time. As a result, even when we are physically out of the office, our mindsets often remain in work mode.

This increasing inability to unplug has extended to our vacations. So much so that there’s now a catchy term for it: “workations.” So, while you may be gone from the office, you don’t ever really leave – not even when you’re supposed to be relaxing at the beach. Workations are so common that, for many, the idea of unplugging doesn’t feel normal anymore. A Regus PLC study found that more than half of Canadian participants would not unplug from their vacation even though they intended to.

But what toll do workations take on employees and employers? It turns out a lot. That’s because vacations aren’t just a generosity provided by employers. They exist for a reason. Think about cyclists who over-train and then fail to perform because, in an effort to get faster and stronger, they’ve gone well beyond their body’s ability to recover. It’s similar with work. According to German researchers, “employees who experience more detachment from work during off-hours are more satisfied with their lives and experience fewer symptoms of psychological strain, without being less engaged while at work.”

Israeli researchers went further and showed that vacations not only reduce burnout, but can have a positive effect on both productivity and absenteeism. And both these elements impact the economy.

Employees with more detachment from work are more satisfied and experience fewer symptoms of psychological strain, without being less engaged while at work.

How bad is the problem? According to a report by the Conference Board of Canada and Sun Life Financial, unscheduled absenteeism alone resulted in a direct cost of more than $12.2 billion, of the $691.7 billion of total wages, to the Canadian economy in 2012.

If vacations are good for us and good for the company, why can’t we unplug? It turns out that we are often our own worst enemy. Despite the belief that bosses are supportive of vacations, feelings of guilt are often cited. Whether it is the fear of coming back to a mountain of work, concerns we are letting co-workers down or worries about impact to our careers, we have made vacations stressful — and so we take less of them, and stay connected for the ones we do take.

To further complicate the issue, studies have found that stressful vacations don’t have positive benefits. Checking our phones may not be stressful, but worries about missing that one urgent issue is. Concerns about returning to the office only to learn of a crisis that we could have helped avoid if we were not away, has us scanning our inboxes. Clearly, finding a way to reduce the stress of being out of the office is also a stressor.

But how to go stress-free and unconnected? The secret to disconnecting can be as simple as our out-of-office response. To truly disconnect, ensure you have a clear path of whom callers should go to in your absence. For those of us who can’t fully disconnect, shift the burden to a team member to escalate urgent issues. Make it clear that if something is truly urgent and needs your attention, they need to contact you another way, such as by text or by calling you. Then you can rest assured the team will let you know if you are needed.

Vacations are a time to recover and recharge. Professional athletes know that rest is critical to performance, so support your “athletes” to have the time to recover and recharge. Do your own research to analyze your workforce data so you can understand how vacations improve your organization’s productivity. And since employees are being paid to take this time off, let them know that it’s also part of their jobs to make sure vacations recharge their personal batteries.